Customer Reviews

Amazing Grace: Mississippi Delta Spirituals By The Hunter's Chapel Singers Of Como, Miss.

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If you think Amazing Grace is a cliche, you probably haven't heard the very different rendition found on this album.

Simple, unembelished, and raw, the arrangements here bring out the emotional complexity, irony, and anger in southern black christianity.

Today's gospel music is all polish and electronic keyboards, attempting to appeal to young people through the infusion of elements like rap. I wonder if there are many groups like this left today, delivering the music in a more "authentic" and ultimately more satisfying way.

Every track on this collection is solid rural blackgospel blues. Fred McDowell is joined in his vocals by his wife and three members of Hunter's Chapel in Como, Miss. McDowell accompanies the group on bottleneck guitar.

This is the powerful, raw blues polished not in the recording studio but in life. Their voices blend in an emotional range ranging from rough and raw to nearly lyrical. Jesus Is On the Main Line could have easily come off a recording from the teens or twenties. You Got to Move has a smoother, more forties and beyond sound. Amazing Grace is a wonderful rendition with the voices interweaving - somewhat as if you merged the call and response style with a lining out style -- the result is absolutely spectacular.

The old time blues/gospel music on this collection is as real and raw as it gets. You'll recognize lots of the tunes but you have never heard them like this. If the first and last tracks of this album don't move you, you're half dead anyway!